3 Strategies For Empowered Living with Elisa Boogaerts | S1E043

Hello and welcome to a call for love. I believe the most powerful gift you can offer yourself is to give and receive love more freely. I'm your host Linda Orisini meditation guidance spiritual coach. Everyone has the desire to be seen, heard, respected and loved. The journey to becoming more connected to your greater purpose lies within the ability to live from the deep source of love within you. Let's begin.

Welcome to Elisa Boogaerts. And she is an inspirational speaker, published author and certified life coach while we have so much in common Elisa. And she helps professionals prioritize themselves to reclaim their time, energy and freedom so they can do what they want to do in their lives. We all want that domain. Lisa understands the challenges faced by people who constantly put others before themselves, her mission is to guide clients to make positive changes towards a life of self prioritization and empowered living. I really love this, I feel that this is a very powerful mission that you have to have a story behind it.

Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I've definitely like in terms of prioritizing myself, I've put other people before me and I've let people walk all over me and, and it just kind of got to a point where I was like, what about me? What about my life? What about, you know, what do I want? And how can I like, learn to sort of set boundaries and, and yeah, put myself first and when we think about love, you know, I can love that. Your podcast is like the call for love. And I feel like a lot of self prioritization is all about that, like learning to love yourself and knowing that it's okay, for you to put yourself first and I think that's like a form of self love. And yeah, so I think that's like a, it's interesting when I was like getting into this work, self love and self care and really comes up a lot when you think about self prioritization, you know, and at first I was like, all about, like, I would just say no, and, like, put boundaries in and you know, and figure out what you want and your values, but, but the whole self love self care thing that always comes up.

Yeah, and so true, because a lot of people think that practicing self love or self care is selfish.

Yes. And they don't like to give that time for themselves. And yeah, because we're so so many of us are such people pleasers and feel like we always need to, like, give and give and give. But if you give so much, you know, you just like empty your cup, we only have so much time and energy in a day, especially time time you like never get back. Right? And, and our energy can be depleted. And so if we, I find that it gets depleted more, the more that you give, as opposed to you know, if you can have your energy for yourself that sort of like last bit longer, you can replenish it. And that's a form of self love as well.

Now, do you have a story, how you became more empowered on this journey?

Like my self love journey has been sort of like this evolution over my entire life. Really, you know, and I think about I think back as a teenager, you know, I didn't love myself, especially my body, especially as my body changed, right? Like, as women, like, I guess, all teenagers, her bodies change. And I grew into my hips. And all of a sudden, I was the only friend with an hourglass figure, you know, and it was like, gross, what's going on, and I was, I've always been quite like, self critical of everything to do with me, you know. And it wasn't until I started on my own personal growth journey that I learned about, like meditation and affirmations and like positive self talk that I started to actually like, love myself, and the person that I am. And I knew that I could change some of my behaviors, to be more the person that I wanted to be, which was, which I thought was just so cool and so profound, that if you actually work on that, like you can rewire things, you can change your limiting beliefs, you can like learn to love yourself, you know, all those things that maybe people have said to you or things that you've made up about yourself throughout your life. You can actually like rewire all that and you can rewire it in a way that's more like loving and compassionate towards yourself. And I just thought that was so cool. And I wanted to be able to let go of some of those like conditioned responses. And you know that my like, my true authentic self shine through because I found that I was living my life that I hadn't, you know, we talked about like have different hats or maybe wearing masks and stuff. And for me, I always think about as kind of like different personas of like ways I felt I had to behave with certain people, you know, and it was like, I felt like I really sort of lost myself, like, who am I? What is my authentic self? Like I've ever I'm really just me. Who is that? You know, how can I let her shine through? And at least recently, even notice that that self critic, just recently, actually, I was talking with my life coach, and she was like, you know, this is, it seems to be a conditioned habit, you know, oh, it's time to criticize myself. No, this is just what I do. And so like, it's like, critical mindset as opposed to, to learning to love myself. And it's taken a lot of like brain training related to really change those habits. And it's still, I think, an ongoing and ongoing journey of self love, but, but I know that I'm so much kinder to myself than what I used to be.

It's so interesting, because I think, you know, as I was a school teacher for over 30 years, and I saw so many children who really were very loving towards themselves, and then somewhere along the line, we lose that. Yeah, you share that you have three strategies for empowered living, I would be so curious to hear this, because I mean, we all want to be empowered in our living, we all want to live our best life. So what are your three strategies.

So my three strategies for empowered living are confidently saying no to what you don't want to do. Prioritizing yourself and doing that guilt free, really letting go of that guilt, and then daring to be you. And really owning it. Authentic, you being like, this is really what I want. And this is how I'm empowering myself to live the life that I want. Yeah, and those are kind of like the three main kind of pillars that like, all of my, my programs, and my talks are all sort of founded in. And I think that they can relate to self love as well, like, especially the prioritizing yourself, you know, if you actually really try and like, because they think you can, you can look at it all different sort of aspects of your life, right? Like, how can you prioritize yourself in different areas? And yes, sometimes it can involve, like prioritizing yourself can involve saying no, right, and sometimes you can get requests from people to do things that, you know, maybe weren't part of our day that we had planned or are weak. And when this happens, I really suggest like to feel it in your body to see what your first reaction is, when that request comes in, you know, and really just sort of pay attention to, to what that feels like, because our body sponsors usually the truth of how we actually feel about it, you know, because we do want to help people. And if it comes from a place like, yes, I want to help you, if it comes from a place with a bit of a hesitant you're like, oh, where might that be coming? Come? Because if we if we tap into that feeling first because our minds are so strong, right? And they think they can take over. And then we like, you know, feel guilty about something, we make excuses. And we like learn really can change our mind. And as we do things that we and then we end up doing things we don't actually want to do. So. Yeah, you're you're nodding your head. Did you have experiences with that? Well,

I think that it's when you had said we first feel it in our body. And that's so true, you know, I can have a decision that I have to make. And I don't know which way to go, what decision I should actually finalize on and, but then I have to really tune in to I always feel it in my gut. And they say your gut is like your second brain. When my stomach feels like it's in knots, which now I realize why sometimes I have digestive issues because when we're holding those tight emotions in our abdominals in our guts, not only does it is a telltale sign to us that we really need to examine what actions we're going to take, but it actually plays havoc on our physical body, you know, our digestive system and our way to cope. In any case, I feel that making decisions is really been a powerful one for me and making decisions to healthy boundaries.

Oh, yes, it is I have this like wonderful saying that I like tell all my clients is that it's very healthy to uphold our boundaries and allow other people to have their experience.

So you don't force people. Yeah,

or that. Yeah, that you're saying that this is this is what I'm going to do. And this is where I can be like healthy and this is my boundary and if someone else doesn't like it, you know, or however they may experience the way that you're upholding your boundary, their experiences. isn't your responsibility, they can like it or they can not like it, but what we need to try and really, like stand strong and be like, No, it's okay. It's really healthy for me to uphold my boundaries or like, this is what I want to do, because I'm taking care of myself, myself.

Yeah, the the I find the problem with that is that if we haven't set that boundary previously, and we're now establishing a healthy boundary, people get a lot of pushback, because they're not used to it. So what would you advise your clients to do when they're setting a new healthy boundary that other people are not used to?

I would say, be consistent with it. And this, I have this amazing communication tool where, when that kind of comes up, and you're trying to set this boundary, I think, first of all, it's over what we can do your communication tool, I think you just need to really remember in yourself that it's, it's never too late. It's never too late to put a boundary and it's never too late to say no, it's never too late to change that. And so if you can really be like who some people are actually disinclined mine the other week, because we were talking about four different like boundary busters, you know, how like people pleasing can be when peer pressure can be one, even like avoidance as a way of like, that our boundaries can get busted down and giving in is one and she said that she was like, you know, I've been giving into this one thing so much for so long. And when I mentioned it to her that it's not too late to change, and she felt really empowered with that. She was like, Okay, you're right, it's because I've been doing this for so long, doesn't mean that I can't have a conversation. And then so we went through this communication tool of being like, A, you acknowledge that you hear the person and what they might want. And then you say, how you feel and what you want. And you can repeat that several times. And I think if you really know that, that your boundary is what you want, and you can explain it to them, as well as why it's important to you. They will eventually come around, even if they get that pushback, you can still say like, I see you I hear you I understand it. This is what I'm doing. Yeah.

I love that. It's easier said than done. Yeah, I find but I also had this friend. And she said to me, her name was Karen, she says if they're not in team Karen, then they're not on my team. And sometimes you have to reevaluate because you know, I am, I was very much a people pleaser. And, and I'm proud of some of the people pleasing that I did. But then when it affects my mental and physical health, then I have to say, okay, maybe we need to reevaluate this. And when people can't accept it, that's when the problem really arises. Right? Then we have to maybe stop and think, how is this relationship serving me? And, you know, I do believe we can move through it. And then sometimes it's like, friends for a season, right?

Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes I think as well, like, if you look at them, you know, not that you have to do what they do. But are they always taking taking taking? Like, are they always asking and asking and asking? And, you know, and do they say no to you? So therefore, like, you know, you could do the same. If there's certain things that you said, like, like, where you notice that, that maybe it's time to, that you need set, like a boundary in place? Or say, no? Yeah, just kind of it's kind of nose. But I believe you that so like, why can't I, you know, nothing necessarily, like needs to do exactly what they do. Do it with, like being your authentic self. But yeah, just notice that, you know, some people take and so therefore, you can take, and I kind of like to reframe it a little bit about that about that with us people pleasers, the way that we love to, like, give so much you can really feel good, right? And so sometimes that's kind of like that the payoff that we get the gratification, and it does feel really nice. And if we're always giving, sometimes we have, like problems receiving. And so you can kind of reframe and be like, You know what, that gift and that feeling that you get when you're always giving, you can give that to somebody else, and allow them to give it to you so that they can have that feeling. And so therefore you can receive, which I think is a nice little reframe, just spreading the love.

I hear what you're saying. And I think that it's really noticeable that some people are more comfortable with just giving than receiving, it's so hard for them to receive. And it's very interesting. I feel like it's something that they're just not comfortable with and then requires some some time some stillness to really understand why.

Yeah, do that, sir. Yeah, what is going on right now? What's happening in my body? Or Where's this coming from? Yeah. I love that stuff. I find it so fascinating to figure that out.

Yeah, and I think that when we can offer so self compassion, self kindness, and really ask ourselves that, and also, there's some people that are in a phase, that just because of the circumstances of their life, they're not able to give so much. You know, it's not all relationships are 5050 in the moment, you know, there could be a week, for instance, you know, I'm married, I could say to my husband, you know, maybe he's busy at work, and it requires more of my attention to be at home and do things, and then vice versa. So, even though we have to sometimes look at the big picture.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And, yeah, like, there was a time last actually, around this time, last year, maybe like, a year and a half ago, I was like, I'm also like, these people pleaser, and to give her and I like to, like, give and helping her out. I don't think I have too much trouble receiving, but I'm super independent. So you know, I'm like, Oh, I can do it. I got I got it. I got I got it. And, and I went through a really rough breakup. And then that's when I was like, you know, what, right now is the time to receive, I don't like I'm not in a place where I can give right now. And maybe I don't got it for everything. So actually, I'm going to reach out for help, or I'm going to receive love and support and kindness that my friends and family are giving me, you know, and I'm going to ask for that right now. And I really had to kind of like, sit myself down and be like, this is okay, because these people love me. And now it's like, you know, I'm giving them the chance to, to give back to me, and I know that they, they want us to do that anyway, you know, everybody was like, How can I help you in any way I can. I was like, Okay, let people help me right now, because I'm in a state where I need it.

I'm so happy to hear that you honor that because it's so heartwarming, it's, it fills somebody else's tank, to be able to give, it's really not fair when you just give, give, give, and you will don't allow to receive and vice versa. And you know, I am a Libra and the, I guess the symbol is balanced scale. So I always feel in life, if I can be as best balanced as I can. And even even in air VEDA, when we're out of balance, it becomes dis ease. And it doesn't have to always be in the physical body, it could be in the mental body. So when there is a really deep discrepancy between giving and receiving, then it can become an issue. Right? Yeah, what else have you noticed in your strategies for empowered living?

Um, I think especially when we were talking about love, I think that like positive self talk, and like, affirmations are just such a way of really empowering yourself. I use them all the time, like, if there's anything I'm trying to achieve in my life, or I have like a new goal or something that I want. And I create affirmations for it, I see them, see them daily, or we'll see like one day if I create like seven L's happen, one for each day of the week. And that's really all about like, the positive self talk is about being your own best friend, right and talking to yourself like you would your best friend with kindness and compassion, exactly what you were saying earlier. And it really helps to transform the negative chatter that we have in our head, right, and the negative things that we say to yourself, and they can help to shift them into a more positive one. That's really super powerful tool, I think they make these natural mindset shifts over time, by being more self compassionate and self loving. And when we have a more positive mindset, our internal narrative, you know, becomes you'll, you'll love yourself more I find. And so, if you do find that something like a negative chatter comes up in your mind, I'd like to challenge it and get curious with it, right? Like, is this really true? And how can I flip it to something maybe that's more positive or more compassionate and more loving. And you can do this by creating an affirmation for it. So next time it comes up, you can like sort of stop it in its tracks and switch it to the positive affirmation. And one that I love, it's like, you know, maybe someone thinks I'll never have what I want, or I can't have that thing, right. And it's maybe a as we could switch that could be like, Well, I have the power to create this. I do I have the power to create what I want in my life. I have the power to create a goal and figure out the steps to get to it, I have the power to love myself more. And when that always kind of came up for me when I was talking earlier about, like, my self love journey and how I've always been self critical one of those criticisms was, I'm stupid. I'm stupid, I'm stupid, I can't get it right, I'm not going to bother. And it almost kind of came became like a reason maybe like, oh, I don't have to try that, if I'm going to not bother him too stupid is like, a giving up sort of, like, avoidance strategy even. And what I love to clip that too, is I'm learning as I go. I have everything that I need to succeed. And I'm strong, intelligent people that you know, and those are much nicer, more compassionate ways to speak into yourself. And I'm stupid, because am I really stupid? Like, no, I'm actually like, I know if I challenge that. Sure, maybe I don't know something, but I can learn it. And I'm learning as I go. Right. And I am capable of figuring it out. So yeah.

I really love that I that is so beautiful. I love the affirmations that begin with I am and learning I am growing. My goodness, we have not perfect so to to really expect that of ourselves is unfair. So to create an affirmation that says, I'm learning, I'm growing, I'm getting there. And then you're, I'm trained in hypnotherapy, because then your mind can actually believe it, your subconscious mind can believe it. If you say I'm brilliant, and you believe that you are not, you're not going to convince yourself. But if you can go those baby steps to take you to from point A to point B, then it's much more believable to your unconscious mind. And I love what they're saying is like fake it till you make it or you know, live as if your miracles have already been answered, or your dreams have already been answered. And then we can just place ourselves in that next step so that we can step into it, then we become so much more self empowered. So I love your examples. It's like, resonates so deeply.

You Yes, I feel like sometimes, like affirmations can get a bit of a bad rap because we were like, oh, like I want to be a millionaire or something like that. You know, like, Well, maybe you do but like, I find it just like me be more kinder to yourself. Like what, what are those criticisms? Are those things and where can you be softer? And actually, yeah, like I'm learning as I go, I'm growing. That's true. Exactly.

The truth always resonates. The truth always resonates. Yeah. So where can people find you?

Um, so my company is called inspiration by Elisa. So on Instagram or Facebook, at inspiration via Elisa, and my website is inspiration by lisa.com. Yeah, and actually have a freebie outside to do integration by elisa.com/gift is where you can find out. Excellent.

Well, we will put those in the show notes. But I was so happy to meet you today, Alicia. I just loved your message. And I love to see you stepping into your power. This is really beautiful. So thank you for coming on a call for love.

Thank you so much for having me. It was awesome. I love meeting you too. And I love the work that you do. Please continue to spread the love. We all need it.

We will walk on that journey together, that's for sure. Thank you for listening. It would mean so much to me. If you could share this episode with someone you feel could benefit from its message and subscribe to a call for love podcast. To receive new weekly episodes every Tuesday. Head over to global wellness education.com to learn more.